The San Francisco Chronicle

It's midmorning, and Thein Soe is hard at work on a new canvas. A leader of Burma's underground art movement, he has been an artist for more than four decades.

Soe, 61, who asked that his real name not be used for fear of arrest, is bone-thin with a face that resembles Edvard Munch's expressionist painting, "The Scream." Over the years, he has weathered the junta's 46-year rule, watching the military run one of the wealthiest Southeast Asian economies into the ground, crush pro-democracy demonstrations and ban most freedom of expression.

Dharamsala, India -- Palgay spent more than two weeks dodging Chinese authorities to fulfill his lifelong dream - a face-to-face meeting with the Dalai Lama.

His journey to the seat of the spiritual leader's government-in-exile high in the Indian Himalayas began earlier this month when he paid a driver nearly $800 to hide inside a pile of luggage headed for Nepal. From there, he sneaked across the border, feeling his way along treacherous rocky terrain under the cover of darkness.

The past several months have been Lebanon's coldest winter in 25 years, and Hanin Rafae is struggling to keep her family warm. Since her home has no fireplace, she and her five sons and six daughters huddle nightly around a fire on the patio overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.

Nashik, India -- On a recent afternoon, Seetabai Atthre heard a faint cry from the edge of a vineyard that her family has cultivated for more than 40 years. Through the furrows, she found her husband, Vishal, smoldering on the ground next to an empty can of kerosene. He had lit himself on fire and died three days later in a local hospital.

Niyamgiri, India — As he recalled a recent trip to the nation's capital, Drika Kadraka came to a sudden halt on a footpath that winds sharply to his village. He then raised his arms in a gesture of thanks to the vast night sky.

"Without our moon, our stars, we Dongria started to feel lost, missing our home," the indigenous leader said, alluding to the dense smog that often blankets New Delhi. "We are lucky here. I know we must never leave these beautiful hills."

The frontline of Burma's largest rebel army is a lonely hilltop ringed by a land mine-littered jungle, mountains controlled by the Burmese military and a patchwork of poppy fields visible through a rusting pair of Soviet binoculars.

"It's opium," said Nan Daw, a captain in the Shan State Army South. "I know because I have patrolled there."

New Delhi -- In a dusty alley on the outskirts of this capital city, a group of 30 women stare at the ground in plaintive silence and form a circle around Omwati Kishore, who waits for her husband to return with the cremated remains of their youngest son.

South Bastar, India -- Two years ago, Comrade Sunil spent his days studying in a school classroom and toiling in corn and rice fields in his ancestral village. But life abruptly changed one night after he returned to find his home torched and his older brother shot dead by a state-sponsored civilian militia on the pretext that he had been a rebel sympathizer.

Muzaffarpur, India -- Looking out over gray waters that have inundated the rice paddies that are his livelihood, Bhavat Nagar swore no flood he could recall came close to the latest monsoon deluge that washed away most of his village and a neighbor's child.

"This is the worst it has been," he said, shaking his head. "We always lose a little, but now we have lost everything. I don't know what to do."

Isabela City is not Baghdad. Roadside bombs don't rip through the floors of humvees, nor do masked insurgents take pot shots at Kevlar-vested soldiers from bullet-riddled buildings.

But like Baghdad, there are American servicemen here. They've been helping Filipino soldiers fight al Qaeda-linked terrorists who have made the southern Philippine region of Mindanao a hotbed of extremist activity during the past decade.

And they're doing it without firing a shot - at least not outside their camp.

After weeks of vote counting, sporadic bombings and allegations of election fraud, the insurgency-racked island of Basilan in the southern Philippines finally has a new congressman. It also has a new governor and mayor of the provincial capital where al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf terrorists once dined in local restaurants by day, and kidnapped priests and schoolteachers at night.

In a twist on the long Filipino tradition of dynastic rule, Basilan's new governor and the mayor of Isabela City are both married to congressman-elect Wahab Akbar.

(04-16) 04:00 PDT Ghimbi, Ethiopia -- First, the police threw Tesfaye into a dark cell. Then, each day for 17 days, it was the same routine: Electric shocks on his legs and back, followed by beatings with rubber truncheons. Four or five officers would then surround and kick him. At last, a large bottle of water would be tied around his testicles. He'd pass out.